


Inexplicably Hopeless

by KittyCatriona (War_Worn_Lipstick)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alcohol, Cheating, Completed, Depression, Dissociation, Ice Cream Parlors, M/M, Swearing, but the title, dan and pj just kinda fling idk, dans parents were killed in a car crash, has importance, he's sad about it, if you don't think about it too much it'll seem happy, it's a sad ending disguised as a happy one, phan above all, pj is 16 but dan and him never do anything more than kiss and stuff, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-07-29 10:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7680793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/War_Worn_Lipstick/pseuds/KittyCatriona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan learns the hard way that sometimes people come into your life and it isn’t meant to be. And then he learns that perhaps it had been meant to be after all. (Or, the one where a sad Dan gets a job at an ice-cream shop and dates a fellow employee, but ultimately falls in love with his employer.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Poor

**Author's Note:**

> Things to know: I don't know anything about Europe, I don't know where in the world this beach town is. PJ is 16 and is in a relationship with Dan when Dan is 19, but they don't have sex ever, and Phil is some undistinguished 20-something year old. Also, I'm so sorry, but I'm pretentious af so my writing is pretentious af. 
> 
> I wrote this literally because I binged a bunch of PJ's videos and wanted to write about how much I love PJ, but I love shipping Phan so much, so, like, I'm so sorry PJ. 
> 
> There are two more parts after this one, and they're all written. Total word count is about 7,300. I'll post the next two in the upcoming days as I get them edited. Bother me on tumblr - username kittycatriona - if I take too long.

Poor little Dan Howell has shut himself in the attic of his parents’ beach house. The attic was originally only supposed to be his makeshift bedroom while his father fixed up the spare room on the western side of the house. In a big storm several years back, before they’d bought the place, there’d been a hurricane, and a crabapple tree from the mainland had blown straight through the wall. 

“It’s cheaper this way,” his father had said when they took a tour of the home, “than it would be to buy a house that’s in perfect shape.” 

“You never finish your projects,” his mother argued. 

“I’ll finish this one,” he said, “for Danny’s sake.” 

Dan had cringed at the nickname because he was fourteen, he wasn’t a boy anymore, he was too good for Danny. 

Summer after summer they stayed at the beach home and Dan got used to the way it would be. When he realized girls found him attractive, he began to look forward to visiting, even though it meant leaving all of his friends behind.

When Dan thinks about summertime he imagines oppressive heat, small ocean waves against his ankles, and quaint ice-cream shops where “shop” is spelt with two P’s and an E on the chipping, pastel sign that hangs over the door. He thinks of salt in the air and on his tongue, and he thinks about the way it feels to shake sand out of his hair, and he thinks about all the girls in colorful bikinis that he’s kissed under the docks. He thinks about a lot of things, but mostly, nowadays, he thinks about the summer after his parents were fatally killed in a car crash.

The oppressive heat had been inescapable and the waves of water against his ankles felt like too much, and the ice-cream shops had a weird smell and the actual ice-cream was just too cold on his tongue and teeth. The salt in the air gave him a headache and he thought very often that he might be sick, and each time he had to shake sand out of his hair was just another opportunity to feel polluted. The girls in colorful bikinis no longer seemed warm, they didn’t seem like anything more than a way to pass the time, they wanted too much and Dan just couldn’t give it to them. 

At the time of his parents’ death, Dan was eighteen years old. He was left all of their money, but there wasn’t much, so he sold their mainland house and left everyone he knew behind, escaping to the beach house and making it his own. 

The spare room was never fixed, and Dan refuses to use his parents’ old bedroom, even after a year and a half, so he remains in the attic on a stained mattress with sheets, blankets, and too many pillows thrown over the top. He meant to string up Christmas lights but never got around to it, so the only source of light is the sun or, at night or during the winter, the streetlamp across the road. There is no view of the ocean from the window. 

Nothing feels like anything anymore and he knows it’s because he’s sad. It’s hard not to be sad when you’re all alone and living off the money your dead parents worked very hard for. His accounts grow smaller every day and he knows he needs a job if he wants to sustain himself for longer than another year. 

He’s nineteen now and for the first time in a long time he leaves the house. After that terrible last summer, he began ordering his groceries online from a little shop in town and having them delivered to his doorstep. Literally the furthest he’s gone in the entirety of the last year has been to occasionally put one socked foot over the threshold. But today he takes a deep breath and he crosses the threshold entirely, wearing shoes, which feel foreign to him and are slightly too small. He takes short steps down the street, puts his hood up, shoves his hands in the pockets of his jacket to fight against the chilled breeze. While this wretched summer hasn’t technically ended yet, the ocean and sky have other ideas. 

He stops into a hardware store and asks if they’re hiring, and the grimy, muscled man behind the counter gives him a discerning look. “Not to kids, we’re not,” the man says and promptly turns away. 

Dan can’t think of anything to say that isn’t either pathetic or rude, so he leaves without saying anything at all. Next is the grocery store and the woman he tries to talk to tells him he needs to speak to the manager, who is on vacation for the rest of the month. “Oh, okay,” Dan tries to say, but he also tries to say “Thanks anyways,” so it comes out a muddled “Oh, anyways,” which seems like such an unpleasant thing to have said that he swears to never set foot in the shop again. 

The last place he finds is one of the ice-cream shops with too many P’s, and at first he thinks the door is locked, but then he realizes it’s a push door and not a pull door, and thus he’s embarrassed even before the little bell above the door rattles. He keeps his eyes down, not wanting to know whether or not anyone saw his mistake. 

He waits in line behind a couple who are very obviously from out of town, as their hair are unnatural colors and Dan can’t imagine anyone in this town selling or even permitting the existence of hair dye. When they finally step aside, a single smoothy and two straws between them, Dan looks up to the counter. 

There’s a boy with wavy brown hair. “Hello,” Dan says, and his voice is small and he wishes it weren’t, “I was wondering if you guys were hiring.” He stares at the boy’s neck because he doesn’t want to seem strange with intense eye contact. That, and the boy is really very attractive, and Dan doesn’t think he can stand to look at him for very long. 

“You’re not observant,” the boy says, and Dan hears humor in his voice, so he glances up for a short second to see if the humor has bad intent. It seems, though, that the boy is just amused.

“What do you mean?” Dan asks as he looks back down. 

The boy taps a sign that’s taped to the counter almost directly in front of Dan. In bold, black letters, it reads _HIRING._ Dan sighs. “Oh, cool.”

“I’m not sure Lester would want anyone as unobservant as you, though,” the boy laughed. Dan forced a laugh as well. “I’ll let him know, though. When would you be free for an interview?”

Dan blinked. “What, no application?”

“We don’t really have a big enough pool of people to pull from to do applications. I mean, chances are if you make at least a half-good impression on Lester, you’ll be hired. Beggars can’t really be choosers.” 

“Alright,” Dan nods. “Sweet. I’m free anytime, really.”

“I’m PJ, by the way,” the boy holds out his hand, and Dan tentatively takes it. “I work most of the afternoon shifts. Lester is looking for someone to fill in the mornings.”

Dan swallows. “Great,” he says. 

“Have you lived here long? I haven’t seen you around,” PJ says, and Dan resists the urge to groan. 

Instead, he hurries things along. “Can I write down my phone number or email address or something? I sort of have somewhere to be.”

“Sure, here,” PJ passes him a notepad and a pencil whose tip is hardly more than a nub. 

“Thanks,” Dan says, writing down his name and number, and PJ nods and licks his lips. “Get that to… Lester, or whoever.”

“Have a nice day,” PJ calls as Dan stalks out of the shop. 

Instead of going back home through town, which he would honestly very much like to do as it is probably twice as fast, Dan makes the odd decision to walk home via the beach. He unties his shoes, stuffs his socks inside them, and dangles them from between his fore and middle finger, swinging them back and forth as he steps carefully over stones and strands of kelp. The sand is damp and quite cold, and the texture is grainer than anything else, but it feels refreshing, in a way, and the sun is beginning to set over the water and Dan feels sort of like he can breathe. 

When he gets back to his house and drops his shoes by the door, everything is remotely terrible again, like he’s watching himself from the sky and everything he touches—the floor, the walls, the ladder to the attic—feels like a violent yank back to earth. He collapses into his mattress, buries his face into a pillow until he can no longer breathe, and thinks that maybe he shouldn’t have left his house at all. He waits until he can’t stand it anymore before he tilts his head slightly to get some air, and then he smothers himself once more. 

The third time he does it, he blacks out before he can help it. 

~

Poor little Dan Howell wakes up the following afternoon to two missed calls, both from the same unknown number, and he presses the heels of his hands into his eyes for just long enough that when he pulls them away, he’s seeing pink spots and there’s a dull ache. He throws aside a blanket, sits up, and dials the number back. 

“Oh, hi,” a man picks up at the second ring, “are you Dan?” 

“Yeahhuh, hello,” Dan says quite eloquently. 

“Great,” the man says, and his voice is too loud, too cheerful, for the Dan that’s just awaken. “I was hoping you’d be able to come in later tonight to get trained. We’d like to have you start tomorrow morning.”

“I—what?” Dan sits up a little straighter. 

“You’re the only person we’ve found who wants a job, so we’re scratching the interview and just having you start, if that’s okay. And I’ve been working the morning shifts, but I really can’t afford to as I’m… quite busy with the actual running of the shop. So the sooner you can start, the better.”

“Oh,” Dan says.  
 “Preferably tomorrow,” the man reminds him. 

“Okay, yeah, sure.” 

“Really? That’s great. Could you come in at six tonight? It’s usually pretty slow around then because people are looking for actual food, and PJ could show you the works.” 

“Yeah, right, PJ. Sure.” To be perfectly honest, Dan has no idea what’s going on, or what he should say. He’s never been employed before, which means he’s never talked to an employer before. How formal should he be? Should he refer to him as “sir?” In a split moment’s decision, he tacks “Sir” onto the end of his sentence.

It’s quiet for a second, and then there’s a short sputter of laughter, and Dan squeezes his eyes shut and buries his face in the hand that isn’t holding his phone. “That rhymed,” the man says after a moment. “Anyways, just wear something business casual, like a button up or something black. We supply aprons.”

“Okay,” Dan says very quietly. 

Dan shows up to the shop at 5:45 that night, having left quite early in fear that he would be late. PJ doesn’t seem to notice or care, and instead supplies a large, kind grin when he sees Dan enter. 

“You got the job!” he laughs, and Dan exhales out of his nose.

“I didn’t even have to do anything,” he says with a shrug. PJ’s smile gets wider and Dan wonders if it hurts to smile that way. 

“Come on then.” PJ motions for Dan to come behind the counter. “I’ll show you the works, and then we can chill for the rest of the shift.”

“Yeah?” Dan frowns. 

“Yup. It’s a super relaxed place. There’s usually a steady flow of customers from eleven in the morning to, like, three or four, with a rush around one or two. And your shift will be from eight to three, so, it works well.”

“Eight?” Dan gapes, “Eight in the morning?”

PJ laughs. “Of course! We sell coffee, too, you know.”

“I didn’t know,” Dan frowns again. 

“Yeah, it’s pretty good, too. I’ll show you how to make it.”

The next hour goes by fairly quickly, in Dan’s opinion, and he gets a pretty healthy understanding of the way the place runs. One thing is bothering him, though, and he feels that the young PJ may not be able to help him much. “What time does your shift start tomorrow?” Dan asks. 

“Twelve,” PJ says with a perky nod. 

“So I’m going to be alone all morning?” 

PJ’s smile, for practically the first time, disappears as he thinks. “I guess so, yeah. I don’t think Lester is coming in tomorrow, since you’re going to be there.”

“What if I mess up?” Dan says, “What if I forget something or can’t find something? Oh,” he takes a deep breath, “oh, shit.”

“Hey man,” PJ puts a hand on Dan’s shoulder. “It’ll be fine. I can see if Lester can come in for a couple of hours.”

“Won’t he be mad?” Dan says. “He told me he’s busy.”

PJ shrugs. “I’m sure he’ll understand.” 

PJ shows him how to open the shop, and then, in turn, he shows him how to close it—just in case—while he actually closes it up. As PJ locks the front door, giving Dan a set of keys for the morning, he asks, “Are you doing anything right now?”  
 “Um, no, I guess not,” Dan says, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Wanna get something to eat? I think The Shack is open ’til eight.” 

Dan wants to say no, he strongly considers saying no, but PJ’s eyes are wide and he looks like a hopeful child—Dan reminds himself to ask how old he is later—so Dan nods. PJ’s face lights up immediately. “Great! Man, I’m starved!” 

They get a table for two and the waitress, a girl Dan recognizes ever so slightly, seats them at a tiny table by a wall. There’s a light hanging right above their heads and no tables immediately nearby, and as he and PJ sit down, Dan begins to feel vulnerable and uncomfortable at the intimacy of it. The place smells like gardenias and Dan doesn’t think that’s a good thing, but the items on the menu look reasonable, so he doesn’t think of complaining. 

“So you just moved here, right?” PJ asks. 

Dan isn’t sure why, but, once again, he finds himself nodding. He thinks it’s because he doesn’t want to have to explain anything to PJ. He doesn’t want to have to tell him about his parents, he doesn’t want to have to tell him about living alone. 

“Where from?”

“London,” he says. “Central London.”

“What for?”

“Just wanted to get away, I guess.”

PJ nods. “Are you living in town or more mainland?” 

“Town,” Dan says. “On Milkwood Lane.” 

“I didn’t know there were any places for sale on Milkwood,” PJ says before shrugging. “That’s great though, man.”

“How long have you been here?” Dan fiddles with the menu.

“Oh, my whole life.”

Dan’s nose wrinkles before he can help it, and PJ’s smile turns soft. 

“It’s really not that bad,” he says. 

“That’s good, I guess,” Dan replies. 

“You get used to it, at least,” PJ says with less certainty, and then his smile drops away. “I guess I just tell myself it’s not that bad… because I know I’ll never leave.” 

Dan blinks. “Why not?” 

“It’s easy, here, I guess. I don’t think I could handle being anywhere else. Besides, the ocean is great inspiration for my art.”

“Your art?”

“Videos, some drawings. Lester helps me out.” 

Dan nods slowly. “That’s cool.” 

“Yeah,” PJ says, and they fall into a silence. Dan can’t decide if it’s uncomfortable or not. Eventually the waitress comes and asks for their order, and they get a pot of coffee and a platter of fish and chips to share. 

At one point while they’re waiting for their food to come out, PJ stops mid-chatter (he seemed to have picked up on the fact that Dan doesn’t want to talk too much, and opted to supply most of the conversation, which Dan is very thankful for). “You have such beautiful eyes,” he says, and Dan closes them.

“What?” he says, eyes still closed. 

PJ giggles. “Such a warm kind of brown.”

“I don’t know,” Dan says, shaking his head. He opens his eyes and looks up at PJ, but mostly through his unkempt hair. 

“Trust me,” PJ says, “you do.” 

Dan swallows and takes a risk. “You’re one to talk,” he says. “Your eyes are like actual emeralds.”

PJ’s smile grows and Dan feels almost good about himself, proud for having made the younger boy happy. “Oh,” he says, “how old are you?”

“Sixteen,” PJ says. “You?”

“Nineteen.” 

“Wow, so you could buy me alcohol.” 

Dan snorts before he can help it and then he’s laughing, and PJ is grinning at him, obviously pleased with himself, and Dan feels a blush rising and he isn’t really sure why. “Is that what you took me out for?” he asks. “To furnish a drug addiction?” 

PJ rolls his eyes. “Alcohol isn’t a drug.”

“Yeah,” Dan says with an easy smile, “it is. Coffee’s a drug too,” he adds as he pours himself a fresh mug. 

“That’s dumb,” PJ says, taking a sip from his own.

“There are people that argue food is a drug, too.” 

“Now that’s really dumb,” PJ says. 

Their food comes and PJ continues talking about random things while Dan listens and nods along. He eats a little too quickly and feels a tad bit ill, but other than that he feels fine, and that’s surprising to him, because this is only the second time he’s left his house in so long, and he thinks that maybe he’s already made a friend, a person he can actually bear to be around. Still, social interaction is very difficult, and by the time Dan is covering the bill (with protests from PJ), he’s ready to get home and collapse onto his mattress, ready to let his exertion take him into an early bedtime. 

PJ hugs Dan goodbye when they split ways, and Dan’s nose is in PJ’s hair and he can smell the younger boy’s shampoo, and it burns his nose a little bit. “See you tomorrow, Dan,” PJ says with a soft smile as he pulls away, and Dan can’t help but to return it. 

~

Poor little Dan Howell wakes up from a nightmare at about five AM, and then he sees shapes in the shadows of the attic and he can’t fall back asleep. He makes himself a pot of coffee and sits on the couch until seven thirty, hardly moving except to lift his mug to his lips and occasionally to get up and pour a new one. Then he gets dressed, manages his hair, and heads outside.

It’s even colder today than yesterday, but Dan takes his time walking anyways, gazing around at the shuttered windows and weather-damaged rooftops. When he gets to the shop, he’s right on time. 

A man in a pale yellow button-down shirt is unlocking the front door, and Dan takes a deep breath as he approaches him. The man doesn’t notice Dan, so Dan swallows hard and says, softly, “Hello.” 

“Ah,” the man says, and his eyes widen ever so slightly when they find Dan’s. He has black hair and a long, rounded face. Dan averts his eyes. “We’re not quite open yet,” the man says with a smile, “but you can come inside. It’ll take a few minutes to get things running, though.”

Dan shakes his head and represses a cringe. “I’m not a customer,” he says a little too quickly, “I’m here to work.” 

The man pauses, thinks for a moment, and then smiles again. “Oh, you’re Dan?” he says.

“Yes,” Dan nods. 

“That’s great! Come in, come in.” He finishes unlocking the door and then holds it open for Dan, who then slumps inside. “I’m Phil,” he says, “but everyone calls me Lester. I own the shop.” 

Dan nods again. “I figured, sir.”

“Please, no sir,” Phil laughs. “I can’t handle it.” 

“Sorry.”

“No, no, don’t be.”

Phil turns the “open” sign over and then the two boys make their way behind the counter. “I’m also sorry,” Dan says, “for making you come in today. I was just nervous to work alone.” 

Phil shakes his head. “Please, don’t be. It’s my fault for scheduling you like I did. I’m absolutely fine with being here.” 

“Okay,” Dan says, and he begins turning on the machines like PJ had showed him the night before. 

“A natural,” Phil says with a smile. “I’m glad I hired you already.” 

Phil stays to help Dan for about two and a half hours, giving little tips and hints here and there, congratulating Dan when he does something right.

Dan isn’t attracted to Phil the way he’s attracted to PJ—he isn’t taken and shamed by Phil’s beauty, he doesn’t feel lesser in Phil’s presence—but he is definitely drawn to Phil in a way that he can’t quite explain. Dan likes Phil, he likes how for some reason he prizes Phil’s approval, how Phil is like PJ and smiles a lot. He likes the strange softness of Phil’s face, the coolness of his eyes, the odd charm of his imperfect teeth. 

When Phil leaves, it’s with a small smirk, a hand on Dan’s shoulder, and a knowing “Later, kid.” 

Dan shivers slightly because the warmth of Phil’s hand sinks into his skin, and he’s left standing alone behind the register, silent and desperate for something he doesn’t understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading i hope you're excited for a love story where the relationship between the rejected partner is more developed than the relationship between the actual love interest 
> 
> (please comment ily!!!!)
> 
> Also, in case you're confused because I realize I didn't explain it very well:
> 
> Dan's family bought the beach house, spent a bunch of summers there, then at age eighteen Dan's parents died, Dan moved to the beach house full time, had a terrible summer, then stayed locked up for a full year in the house, and it's the end of the following summer now. Wow, way to make a complicated backstory for what is actually a pretty short piece of fiction, damn.


	2. Confused

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enjoy guys. warnings for cheating and a sex scene towards the end but it's not very graphic.

When PJ arrives to work at noon, confused little Dan Howell feels oddly elated. “Hey, Peej,” he says, and PJ frowns before smiling. 

“Peej? What even is that?” 

Dan shrugs. “How are you?” 

He pretends not to notice the way PJ’s cheeks are glowing pink. “Good,” he says. “I went to the library this morning and got some books about Charles Dickens.” 

“Why Charles Dickens?”

PJ dons his apron and comes to stand beside Dan. The shop has steadily been getting busier all morning, but right now there’s a slight lull. “Not sure. Seems like a cool guy.”

“Do you like his books?”

“Never read any of them, honestly.”

“Oh,” Dan says. “That’s weird. You’re weird.”

Dan leaves at two, but only after he and PJ solidify plans to catch a shuttle bus into a neighboring town later that evening. PJ had offered to pay for cinema tickets to make up for Dan paying for their dinner the night before, and Dan, still riding on his elation, had accepted. 

About halfway through his walk home, though, Dan gets slammed with a feeling of dread, the worst kind, the existential kind, and he trips up the cobbled walkway to his front door and barely gets inside before the tears start. He thinks about his dead parents, how they essentially made nothing of themselves, how, sure, they made him, but he’d been nothing for them to be proud of and more often than not was only a disappointment. He thinks about how he would eventually be a dead person who’d made nothing of himself, just another corpse among billions of other corpses, human and animal alike, a single entity held together by wasted potential. He cries because all he’s thinking about is himself in relation to the world and he feels worse than every person he’s ever known. 

Eventually he gets the energy to boil water for tea, but he never pours himself a cup. Instead he starts towards the attic to lie down, but he stares at the ladder and it looks so daunting, and he’s so exhausted, so he just lies down on the floor right there and stares at the baseboard of the wall, feeling miserable and then even more miserable just because he hates when people lie around and act like the world is ending. 

He gets a phone call and it’s PJ, and he forgot that they exchanged numbers earlier. He lets it go to voicemail and then he sees the time—seven thirty—and he feels horrible, so he types out a quick message and sends it. 

_im so sorry i lost track of time. i feel not great_

And then PJ replies, _omg r u ok??_

Dan doesn’t respond, and a few minutes later he gets another message. 

_u said u live on milkwood right??? what house??_

Dan frowns and sends out his address, and then after a few minutes he realizes why PJ was asking and he jolts into a sitting position, the phone slipping down into his lap. 

He quickly runs to the bathroom, splashes cold water onto his face, and attempts to fix his hair. He can’t decide if it looks like he’s been crying all day or like he’s physically ill, maybe both, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on it because he hears a knock on the front door and he rushes to answer it. 

“You really didn’t have to come,” he says as he lets a worried PJ inside. “I was just being dramatic.” 

“I don’t believe you,” PJ says with a frown. “Have you been crying?”

“No, I—I was chopping onions. For dinner.”

PJ stares at him. “What’re you making?”

“I—” Dan stops and takes a deep breath, “—okay, no onions.” 

“Thought so,” PJ says, looking smug. The look disappears very quickly, though. “I thought you said you just moved here.” He looks around the house. “I didn’t think you’d lie.” 

“What?” Dan asks. “What do you mean?” He leads PJ to the couch and they sit down, a fair distance of about a foot or two between them.

“Everyone always talks about a kid who lives in this house and never leaves.” PJ gives Dan a meaningful look. “Parents died a little over a year ago. Orders groceries to be delivered. Sound familiar?”

Dan sighs. “Fine, okay,” he says. “Yeah, I didn’t just move here.” 

He hears PJ take a deep breath and he risks glancing at him. He expects to find anger, or frustration at having caught him in a lie, but all he sees on PJ’s face is reservation. “That’s okay,” he says eventually, and Dan can’t believe how pure this kid is. “I’m not mad or anything.” PJ turns in his seat to face Dan, and their knees bump together and Dan shudders. “I am extra worried, though,” PJ adds. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Dan says. “I just get sad sometimes.”

PJ nods. “That makes sense.” 

Dan doesn’t see it coming at all, but suddenly PJ is leaning forward and kissing him, and Dan can’t help but respond, tangling his fingers into PJ’s hair as PJ’s hands lightly rest against Dan’s waist. It’s soft and sweet with no tongue, and when PJ pulls back, neither of them remove their hands from each other. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” PJ says. 

“You’ve known me for a day,” Dan reminds him. 

PJ huffs out a laugh and Dan feels it against his nose and mouth. “I meant kiss a boy,” PJ says, “in general.”

“Oh,” Dan says, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed. 

“You’re the first boy I’ve met that’s close to my age and isn’t just here for vacation,” PJ says, and to Dan it feels like a spike in his chest. He isn’t special—especially not to this incredibly attractive boy who, Dan reminds himself, is only sixteen. 

“I see how it is,” Dan says, and he forces himself to chuckle. 

PJ frowns. “I don’t mean it like that,” he says. “I like you.” 

“You don’t even know me.” 

“We have time,” PJ says, and he leans in for another kiss. 

~

PJ and confused little Dan Howell get closer and closer as the months go by, but Dan can’t shake the feeling that PJ is just using him, or maybe that he’s just using PJ. Dan is happier this way—he’s comfortable with PJ and loves having someone around (especially on the bad days)—but he thinks he’d prefer it if he and PJ were just friends, because that’s how it seems to him most of the time anyways. When he wants romance with PJ it’s only because he desires the intimacy, not PJ himself. He wonders if it’s the same way for PJ, or if he’s stringing the poor boy along and should break it off with him. 

He wonders if he’s biased against PJ solely because he’s got some weird kind of interest in Phil.

Whenever Phil comes into the shop when Dan is working, Dan feels himself get warm, and he works his hardest to impress Phil because he loves it when the older man gives Dan those little suggestive looks or when he touches Dan lightly in that approving way. 

Dan feels like a schoolboy who has a crush on his teacher, and PJ is just there, not really fitting into the metaphor at all. 

Still, Dan can’t imagine how awkward it would be if he did break it off with PJ, what with the fact that they work in close quarters together, nearly every day, for two hours. 

One particularly slow day when Phil came in to take inventory, Dan and him end up sitting at a table together. Dan picks at a napkin while Phil leans back in his chair. “PJ told me you’re the loner kid on Milkwood.” 

Dan makes a small, affirmative noise.

“What made you finally leave your house?”

Dan shrugs. “Money.”

“Weren’t you lonely?”

“Yeah,” Dan says, and he tears off the corner of the napkin. “Very.”

“I’m sorry about your parents,” Phil says.

“Don’t be,” Dan says. “It was their time, I guess.” 

“Do you believe in that kind of thing?” Phil asks, and Dan looks at him. He’s staring off at the ceiling, blue eyes wide and curious. “Everyone having ‘their time?’ Fate?”

Dan shrugs again before elaborating. “It’s hard to say. I think it’s comforting to think that way.”

Phil nods slowly. “It’s hard to grasp the idea that we could die at any time. I think I would rather believe that if I die, I died because I was supposed to at that moment.”

“If you die?” Dan smiles slightly, and Phil matches the expression. 

“I intend to live forever in a robotic cube, thank you very much.” 

“Of course,” Dan laughs. “Lester, the Robotic Cube—I wouldn’t expect anything less.” 

“Call me Phil.”

Dan looks at Phil, then, and he sees a kind earnestness, and it makes Dan feel very nice. “Okay,” Dan says, “Phil, the Robotic Cube.” 

Phil grins, and then a second later it’s gone. “Would you like to come over to my place, tonight?” he asks, and Dan’s eyes widen. “I could cook you dinner, and we could watch a movie.” 

Dan can’t find the capability to speak for a solid five seconds, but then, all in a rush, he says, “Iwouldabsolutelyloveto.”

“Sorry,” Phil’s brow furrowed, “what was that?”

“I’d love to,” Dan says with a blush. 

PJ comes in to start his shift about thirty seconds later, and all excitement Dan had been feeling disappears quickly. He takes care of a customer while PJ and Phil chatter about how cold it’s been. 

~

Phil serves confused little Dan Howell an incredible combination of sushi and chicken udon for dinner that night, and they stuff themselves almost to a breaking point and then wash it down with several glasses of red wine. Dan loves Phil’s house, the quaintness of it, the blue and white color scheme, the lively houseplants that decorate every window sill. Dan settles onto the love seat and learns that Phil’s favorite movie is _Jurassic Park,_ and they watch it together, the tension between them growing. Phil will say some fact about one of the species of dinosaur, Dan will call him a nerd, and then they’ll inch towards each other slightly, until at the end of the movie their fingers are brushing and their ankles are bumping, and as the credits roll, Phil turns to look at Dan. 

“How old are you?” Phil asks. 

“Twenty, as of last week.” 

“Good,” Phil says, and then he kisses Dan, and Dan finds himself swelling, and there’s heat in his ears, oppressive heat, almost, and with that realization Dan starts thinking about how Phil is exactly like the summers he remembers from when he was a teenager, sweet but passionate and sensory but never too much. 

Their arms wrap around each other’s bodies and Phil pushes Dan back against the arm of the sofa, and clothes are coming off and Dan wants it so badly, so incredibly badly. When Phil starts to retreat, Dan gasps and mumbles a “no,” and Phil smiles down at him and tells him he just needs to get the lube and a condom, and Dan feels like an idiot but he follows Phil into the bedroom and they continue from where they left off. 

When Phil is inside Dan and Dan’s arms are loosely linked around Phil’s neck, he feels like they’re moving and breathing together. He feels like Phil is a part of him that’s simply been missing, and when the small noises start to slip from Dan’s lips, and Phil buries his face in Dan’s neck, he realizes that this could be enough, this could be all he needs to mean something on this planet he lives on and does not understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! let me know what you thought in the comments?
> 
> third and final part will be up in a couple of days 
> 
> also, once again notice how pi's development is like 6x stronger than phil's hahahah I'm laughing what tf am i doing w myself


	3. Dan Howell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy guys

“I went by your house yesterday,” PJ says. “Because you had the morning off and I thought it would be nice to get coffee, or something.” 

Dan Howell looks up from the register. He’d been making a scoop for a woman and hadn’t seen PJ come in. “Sorry,” he says. “I was… out of town.” He leans against the counter and smiles as well as he can. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” PJ says. “You could have texted me.” 

Dan can’t think of how to respond.

“Do you want to get something to eat tonight?” PJ asks.

Dan closes his eyes. “Not really, actually.”

“Oh,” PJ says, frowning. “Is something wrong?” 

The woman leaves the shop and it’s just PJ and Dan, and Dan thinks that maybe this is just as good a time as any to do what has to be done. “I want to break up,” Dan says. 

“Oh,” PJ says again. 

And then neither of them say anything more, and guilt weighs on Dan’s conscience, so heavy that when he leaves at the end of his shift, he doesn’t even make it back to his house. 

~

The next few days are rough, because Dan Howell never opted to explain anything further to PJ, and PJ won’t say anything to Dan unless it’s related to work. 

Then, exactly a week after the apparent break-up, PJ shows up at Dan’s house at five-thirty in the afternoon. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the shop?” Dan frowns. 

“Lester is there,” PJ says. “Is it because I wouldn’t sleep with you?”

“What?”

PJ takes a deep breath. “Did you break up with me because I wouldn’t sleep with you? Because we can do it right now. I’m completely willing to have sex with you.”

Dan’s mouth falls open and he leans forward, absolutely disbelieving. “PJ,” he says after a moment, “ _no._ Of course that’s not the reason.”

“Then why?” PJ asks. “I don’t understand what I did wrong!”

“Peej,” Dan says with a sigh. “Come inside, alright? We can talk about it.”

“No,” PJ says. “Just tell me, okay? Just tell me, and then I’ll leave, and it won’t be weird.” 

“Fine,” Dan says, and he proceeds to tell PJ his thoughts on love and romance, and using another person, and the whole time, PJ just stares at him. When he’s finally done, PJ visibly swallows.

“And Lester?” he asks. “How does he fit in?”

“What? What do you mean?”

PJ laughs, a single, short sound that has no humor in it whatsoever. “I just talked to him. I told him we broke up, and then he told me how you two fucked last weekend. Well, he didn’t do that exactly, but I can connect the dots.” 

“Peej, look—”

“My name is PJ,” he says, and Dan sees his fists clench at his sides. “What the hell does Lester have that I don’t have?” 

“I don’t—”

“You’re a fucking cheater, Dan,” PJ almost shouts, and Dan shrinks into himself. “I fucking loved you, and you hurt me, okay? You fucked with me and then you fucked with your boss, and—and are you aware that you’re a horrible person?”

“Please stop,” Dan whispers, and PJ shakes his head. 

“Oh, that’s rich. That’s really fucking rich, Dan. You can’t hurt people and then play the victim when they get mad.” 

“I told you how I felt,” Dan says, sick of being shouted at. “I told you I never loved you. I told you I didn’t like using you. And you told me that if I explained why I broke up with you, you would leave. So why are you still here?”

PJ’s jaw tightens. “Fuck you, Dan Howell,” he says. “Fuck you.” And then he leaves. 

~

Dan Howell calls Phil and quits his job, effective immediately, and then he absolutely trashes his parents’ bedroom in a fit of rage. Then he calls a realtor and arranges for the house to be sold. He packs a single cardboard box and a suitcase with the barest necessities, and then he collapses onto the couch and starts to cry. There’s a knock on the door, which he ignores, and then Phil is there anyways, kneeling in front of him, rubbing his arms and pulling him in for a hug. 

“Breathe,” Phil tells Dan. “Everything is meant to happen this way.” 

Dan wishes he could believe that were true. 

~

Dan Howell has been living in London for two years now, and he has his own radio show that he holds in very high esteem. He likes that London doesn’t taste like salt but he hates the noise. When he first returned, he tried to reunite with his old friends, but he found they no longer had anything in common. He wondered why that was. 

One day in the springtime, when he’s leaving work after his show, he stops in his tracks. 

There’s a boy reading the sign in front of the building, and he has curly brown hair and he’s taller and more gorgeous than ever. He doesn’t notice Dan at first, but when Dan continues to stand and stare, mouth agape, he turns. 

“Oh,” he says. “That was easy.” 

“PJ?” Dan takes a step closer but doesn’t know if he should go further. 

“Yeah. Hey, Dan.” 

“What are you doing here?”  
PJ shrugs and smiles, and Dan realizes he had forgotten the true extent of how beautiful PJ was. “I’m studying at LFS.”

“Oh,” Dan says. “Film, right?”

“Yeah,” PJ says. 

They go out for dinner and it’s nice, Dan thinks. They have warm conversations and there doesn’t seem to be any leftover hard feelings. 

“I don’t know,” PJ responds when Dan asks why he came. “I heard you on the radio and I was curious, I guess.” 

Dan nods. 

Later, when they’re leaving the restaurant, PJ asks, “Have you talked to Lester at all since you left?”

“No,” Dan frowns. 

“Oh,” PJ says. “He was pretty sad, I think.”

~

A few weeks later Dan Howell catches a train to the beach with nothing more than a backpack over his shoulder. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing, what he’s going to say, but he takes a deep breath and then enters the ice-cream shop (smiling when he sees the extra P and E on the pastel sign outside). Phil isn’t there, but he talks to the girl at the counter and she’s pleasant and helpful. “He usually only comes in during the morning shifts,” she says. “Are you a friend of his?”

“Old friend, yeah,” Dan says, and then he and the girl have nice smalltalk until another customer comes in, and Dan says his goodbyes and leaves. 

He stops by his old house and walks around the outside of it. It’s been painted and there are flower trays in some of the windows. The spare room looking out over the sea has been repaired, and Dan wouldn’t admit it, but he sheds a few tears when he sees that. 

Outside Phil’s house he has to stop and remind himself to breathe carefully, remind himself that Phil could have a partner now, a husband or a wife, and that all of this could be completely for nothing. He has to consider everything, because if he doesn’t, he knows the disappointment will be too much to bear. Even so, he worries that the disappointment will be too much to bear. 

Phil answers the door and Dan audibly gasps. It’s just that Phil looks so similar it’s as though Dan is staring into his memories, but, at the same time, Phil has obviously grown older. His hair is still as black as ever, dyed, Dan realizes then, but his eyes look aged and there are laugh lines on a face that has gotten sharper and more translucent. The way Dan feels, looking at Phil, is familiar. 

“Dan,” Phil breathes, and they stare at each other for several seconds while Dan tries to think of what to say. 

Eventually, he lands on a simple “Hey.” 

Then Dan is being hugged and Phil smells like salt, but in a good way, in a way that reminds Dan of comfort food and caramel. He pulls back, about to say something (though he isn’t too sure what), and then Phil kisses him. 

It’s chaste and over too soon, and Phil is looking at Dan now as though to ask if that was okay. Dan doesn’t bother nodding, and instead kisses Phil back. 

~

Dan Howell is lying in Phil’s bed the next morning, drinking a coffee Phil had brought for him. While Phil makes breakfast in the kitchen, Dan stares around the bedroom. 

There are more plants, Dan thinks, than there had been when he was here years ago. There are several cacti on the bookshelf and one of them is long and spills over the shelves like braids, and there are red flowers blooming at the window. Dan feels comfortable and trusting, like he would let the world take him anywhere and he would be fine with it. He feels like everything that happened in his life happened so he could sit here in this moment, basking in the morning sunlight, drinking in the things Phil has collected and displayed. He thinks about his life and fate and, for what might be the first time, it doesn’t terrify him. 

Dan Howell doesn’t like feeling hopeless, but he thinks the hopelessness he’s feeling right now might be something inexplicably unique. He is fine with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please comment! i really really appreciate comments even just something short means the entire world to me


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